Bank of America CEO says financial industry will embrace crypto payments if regulators allow

CNBC

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said Tuesday that the U.S. banking industry will embrace cryptocurrencies for payments if regulators allow it.

The head of the second-largest U.S. bank by assets was asked by CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin about how the industry’s approach to crypto could change given President Donald Trump’s enthusiasm for digital currencies.

“If the rules come in and make it a real thing that you can actually do business with, you’ll find that the banking system will come in hard on the transactional side of it,” Moynihan said in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

American banks have largely avoided letting customers use crypto for retail transactions, although their institutional trading and wealth management arms have participated in markets for bitcoin ETFs. Leaders in the industry, including JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, have lambasted bitcoin as a currency for criminals and fraudsters…